


Savage Damsel, Savage Knight

by RobberBaroness



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:41:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23437870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/pseuds/RobberBaroness
Summary: It's Lancelot instead of Gareth who disguises himself as a lowly servant in penance for his pride.  And it's Lancelot who gets stuck with escorting a foul-tempered maiden on a quest through the Forest Perilous.
Relationships: Lancelot du Lac/Lynette (Arthurian)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	Savage Damsel, Savage Knight

**Author's Note:**

> This was largely inspired by an episode of the old tv show "The Adventures of Sir Lancelot" where they gave him this adventure and he and Lynette were really cute together. Also, I felt I owed Lancelot a nicer story after Darkest Timeline...

“No. Absolutely not. A blind man could see though your disguise- you think I can’t recognize Lancelot because he’s cut his hair and grown a beard? Go run off into the woods again if you don’t want to be a knight anymore, but leave me out of it.”

Kay was far angrier than Lancelot had expected him to be- he probably felt that Lancelot was trying to make a fool of him. He wasn’t. If he was making a fool of anyone, it was himself. He made his appeal again.

“I’m sorry I tried to disguise myself. I wasn’t trying to deceive you. I just wanted to start over. I don’t want any of the glory of knighthood, I just want to serve Camelot in as humble a way as possible.”

Kay groaned.

“You really think you’ll be any use to us in the kitchens? The last thing I need is a giant oaf knocking everything about. If you’re really intent on this madness, you can work in the stables. And what am I supposed to tell everyone to call you?”

“Whatever you see fit.”

Kay scowled at Lancelot, presumably trying to think of an appropriate insult. Finally he settled on one.

“Your name is Sangmains until you decide to end this ridiculous charade. Now go make yourself useful with the horses.”

Bloody hands. It was a suitable enough name.

***

Work in the stables felt hard and unglamorous and honest. What it couldn’t do was erase his last conversation with Guinevere.

_ “I love you,” she had said, “and I love Arthur. But I love Camelot more than either of you, and if I am to protect it, I cannot have you both. Know that I will never forget your love, but you must leave me. Find a wife who can love you with all her heart. I can never be that woman for you.” _

It stung him every time he thought of her words, and what hurt him the most was the knowledge that she was right. He could not be her knight, not if he couldn’t keep courtly love and physical love separate from each other, but if he was not her knight, what was he? He could not abandon Camelot, but he could not sit at the Round Table with no purpose to him- and he could certainly not stay in the court where he would be forced to see her every day. 

And so he served Camelot in the lowliest place he could find. Kay was right that no one who had known Lancelot personally would ever be fooled by his disguise, but to those who hadn’t known him, he was just a clumsy groom who had a way with unruly horses. Even Gringolet, Gawain’s fearsome Saxon warhorse, would let him brush the mud from his back- though that was likely because Gringolet remembered him from prouder days.

Lancelot missed those days. He missed Gawain, he missed Arthur, he missed Guinevere most of all. But it was not to be anymore.

Or so he thought until one day Kay dragged a furious woman with him into the stables. He was taken aback by the beauty of her soft brown hair and deep green eyes, but more so by the spitting anger with which she treated Kay. The rancorous seneschal had met his match, it seemed.

“Why have you taken me here?” the woman shouted. “I demand to see Sir Lancelot! Only the greatest knight in all of Camelot can save my sister!”

Kay was working hard to suppress a grin as he put his hand on Lancelot’s shoulder.

“Kneel, boy.”

Lancelot knelt automatically, and Kay pulled out his sword, performing a mockery of the knighting ceremony.

“There’s your champion, Lady Lynette. Arise, Sir Sangmains, and escort this harridan to rescue her no doubt equally charming sister at Castle Perilous, though the Forest Perilous. Feel up to that, stable boy?”

The lady sputtered in outrage.

“My sister is in desperate need! The Red Knight of the Red Lands demands that she surrender herself to him, and has slaughtered every knight who has come to rescue her! You cannot send some stable boy to his death! You murder him in sending him to this task, and you make a mockery of me and my sister! I demand to be escorted by Sir Lancelot, the greatest knight in all Camelot! Only he can defeat the Red Knight!”

Kay laughed in what Lancelot thought was an unfair manner.

“Oh, I think Sangmains here will be more than enough for your task. I’ll get Gawain to give him his horse and sword, at least. Take Sir Sangmains or take no one. That’s what you get for storming into the round table and insulting the king.”

The lady looked ready to cry, and Lancelot reached out to touch her shoulder. She jerked away from him as tears rolled down her cheek.

“My sister is doomed, and so am I,” she said. “My poor sweet Lyonors will be forced to wed a monster, and I will lose everything. You are fools and brutes, all of you, to send me off with nothing but a groom!”

“My lady,” said Lancelot, “If they send me to fight for you, I will fight for you. You need not fear.”

The lady sniffed, but something in the tone of Lancelot’s voice seemed to convince her- for a moment, anyway. Then she was back to her proud, wrathful self again.

“You will address me as Lady Lynette, if you are to be my champion. We are both doomed, you to be slaughtered by the Red Knight, and I suppose I shall be held as the final hostage for my sister to yield her virtue, but if this is what Camelot gives me, I shall take it. Let our fates shame Camelot forever!”   
  


***

Lady Lynette didn’t warm up to Lancelot any more as they rode together through the Forest Perilous. Periodically Lancelot would try to talk to her and she would dismiss him with a toss of her long brown braids. Guinevere had used to tease him by pretending offense when he disgraced himself in some minor way, but this was what genuine offense looked like. And in his heart, Lancelot could not blame Lynette for being so angry. If he could only reveal who he truly was- but at this point, it would make him look foolish. 

“You must truly love your sister,” Lancelot said at last, and finally Lynette deigned to answer.

“I do. I wanted her to come with me when I found the secret path out of the castle, but she was too afraid. I have been called fair, but she is fairer still than I, and I fear for what the Red Knight will do if he breaches the walls of the castle. For many days I ran and slept in the forest like an animal, all to reach help- and I got you instead.”

She turned her head away.

“I am sorry,” said Lancelot.

“You are not the one who insults me. You are the insult itself. Just because I wasn’t perfectly polite when I asked for a champion they gave me a stable boy with a ridiculous name. Sangmains. Why should a simple groom be given a name like that.”

“I used to get into fights,” Lancelot said. It was technically true.

“A rowdy servant. Just what I need.”

Their conversation was stopped by the approach of a strange knight, whose armor was all in black. Lynette tensed up, and Lancelot sat up to attention. There was no recognizable heraldry on the shield, and there was one thought that went through both their heads- a robber knight. Lancelot held tightly onto his sword, and Lynette pulled her horse back.

“You will hand over your weapon, your horse, and-” here there was a sneering tone in the black knight’s voice- “your lady. Else you will die here in the forest.”

Lancelot hadn’t wanted to be a knight again- he hadn’t wanted to bring tales of glory back to Guinevere- but just the thought of someone threatening to take Lynette- cruel and brave, disdainful of him and loving to her sister- filled him with rage. He charged ahead towards the black knight and decapitated him in one stroke.

He heard Lynette scream behind him, but he proceeded to rip the black armor off the dead knight anyway. When he turned back to face his lady, she was deathly pale.

“A- a lucky stroke…” she said.

“Perhaps,” Lancelot said as he donned the black knight’s armor.

“Knights are supposed to offer their defeated foes mercy-” she started.

“No mercy for would-be ravishers,” he said.

“Can’t really say I disagree with you there. Sangmains indeed. They should have called you Achilles for your brutal rage.”

Lancelot shrugged as the armor fit into place.

“I-” Lynette began, but he waved her off.

“If you’re going to apologize, forget about it. I would have acted the same if I came seeking help for a loved one and seemed to be given no help at all.”

“No, I’m not going to apologize. I’m going to order you to strike down the Red Knight as quickly and as pitilessly as you struck down the Black Knight.”

Lancelot bowed to her.

“As my lady commands.” It felt good to say that again. Lynette was not Guinevere- she was colder, sterner, even vicious in her insults. But he was not Lancelot on this journey- Sangmains was no tournament knight bedecked in flowers and lady’s favors- he was a brutal warrior who slaughtered all who crossed him.

Perhaps they made a good travelling pair.

***

It was after the death of the third robber knight that Lynette started trying to guess who ‘Sangmains’ really was.

“You’re Mordred. Or Agravain. I’ve heard the two of them wander the countryside causing all kinds of havoc, and that seems to be your style.”

“The day I behave like Mordred and Agravain is the day god should strike me down,” Lancelot replied.

“Hmm. You could be Gawain- it would explain why that dreadful horse likes you so much- but he’s supposed to glow in the sun. Galahad disappeared some time ago, but a man who offers no mercy cannot possibly have been a grail knight.”

“Not a very good grail knight, anyway,” said Lancelot.

Lynette looked at him, her eyes widening.

“I think I knew...I think I knew all along. When Kay led me to you when I demanded Lancelot...oh, you’ve been toying with me this whole time! You’re dreadful, and I hate you!” Despite her words, there was a proud smile on Lynette’s face.

“Lancelot?” he replied. “No. I am Sangmains, the bloody-handed. I am the creature you need for the job ahead of you. And it is my deepest wish that my lady will grant it.”

Lynette looked down.

“My sister Lyonors is far fairer than me. When you see her-”

“When I see her, she will only remind me of you. Now give me an order. Anything. It is what I live for.”

Lynette pulled a ribbon from her braid and handed it to Lancelot, who tied it onto the bloody black armor.

“Hack the Red Knight into pieces for me,” she said. “Give him as little mercy as he gave all the knights whose bodies he hung upon the trees. And when you succeed, I will reward you with a kiss.”

Lancelot looked upon the fearsome face of his lady and smiled.

“You’re not married, by any chance?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

He bowed to her.

“Then I will be as brutal as my lady Lynette demands.”

They looked ahead to where the Red Knight stood.

“Be brave, my beloved Sangmains,” she said.

“And be brave, my savage damsel.”

And with those words, he charged ahead.


End file.
